Thank you!

People who cook me dinner always deserve to be mentioned on Chezpei.

C and her friend cooked up a fantastic pot of oden tonight. Oden is Japanese hot pot made with kombu (seaweed) stock, a variety of fish cakes, tofu, noodles, hard boiled eggs, and a variety of other goodies. Like most hot pots, there's a sort of "anything goes" mentality. Tonight the things I liked best were a shark's fish cake (huge slabs of very tender, almost tofu-like cakes) and a little tofu skin pouch filled with mochi. I really regret not getting a good photo of that. Photo skills were definitely left at the door today. I was just so grateful to have a lovely, warm home-cooked meal made by someone else. Yummmm. C's friends know their Japanese food, and a huge bottle of great sake was on hand. I've never cared for sake, but tonight's bottle was clean, crisp, creamy, and delicious chilled. It really completed the oden experience.

A few hours after the oden, someone came up with the brilliant idea of making spam musubi. So the Hawaiian in the room took charge and showed us all how it's done on the islands. Aren't they cute? In another instance of "Why is San Francisco itty bitty," C's friend the musubi master turned out to be Chowhound sushi fiend umetaro. Even when I don't go to Chowdowns I meet up with Chowhounds.

Less exciting was a bowl of udon I had earlier today at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown. Almost everything about it was fine: clear broth, not too much sauce, nice flavors, decent toppings. But the udon! Oh, the horrible, horrible udon! It was too dense, lacked spring, and had been over-cooked. I was saddened, especially because fair food is supposed to make one very happy. Oh well.